


Secret Missions

by Anonymous



Category: Newsies (1992), Thor (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 19:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14385642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	Secret Missions

“Thanks for stopping by, come again!” The chorus came amidst the tinkling of the bell as Thor pushed the door open and glanced back to wave at the cheerful baristas, all moving like synchronized window wipers. 

“What kind of a name is this?” Loki’s question came out like a complaint when Thor fell in step with him, scrutinizing his brother’s handwriting on a brown tissue paper. “It’s meaningless.”

“It’s an American name, what do you expect?” Thor tossed back his venti americano. “We’re in Brooklyn.”

“And I suppose that must explain everything,” Loki snorted, raising his matcha latte. “How can you even be sure we can trust this man if we can’t even trust him to pick out a decent name for himself?” Biting the green straw, he took a sip from his cold drink. 

“He’s the name we got so he’s the name we’ll find,” Thor dismissed his concerns, waiting by the corner of the curb to let a couple of yellow taxis pass, rolling out of the shadows cast by the russet and colorful buildings rubbing shoulders with each other, into the sunlit main road. It was an empty afternoon, of a weekday typically spent indoors, in air-conditioned offices. “You’ll have no trouble finding him—I hear he’s a gambler.”

Loki gave his brother a look. “You’re willing to bet on a gambler.” A statement that begged to be corrected. 

Thor only grinned at him, though, his lone blue eye sparkling at the brilliance of his plan. “That’s where you come in. I’m sure he wouldn’t be as bad as you.” Giving his brother two fond pats, he crossed the street. 

Loki rolled his eyes. He followed after his brother, hurrying past a pair of bicycles to catch up, pulling at his straw again. Both Asgardians blended in perfectly with the sparse counterflow in their appropriate costumes—sleek suits and everyday jackets, although they were yet to catch someone similarly dressed as them. They glanced back when they heard the urgent roar of an engine from the distance. “I’ll need a map and a—” 

A flash of golden hair obscured his vision, two pairs of hands and the stumbling weights of panic upsetting his balance. The thin crowd out in the street let out a cry, a series of angry yelling that perfectly reflected Loki’s mood when his vision finally cleared and landed on the wasted cup of green tea and milk splashed out on the pavement. A pair of tires screeched out in pain. He looked up. 

“Loki!!”

Even without Thor’s urgent call, he would have caught that murky-looking car racing down the middle of the road. It was dark green, plain-looking, unpolished and it was swerving and twisting to the left with dangerous abandon. That car could be anything, really. 

But if there was anything that the distant sirens of pursuit and Thor’s late night movie marathons told him—it wasn’t. 

Loki’s hands were up before he could even think of what he was doing. From out of the concrete, the wild head of a stone dragon burst forth with all the theatrics that came with it—smoke, rocks, violent eyes, the sharp rage that came bellowing out of an awakened giant. Not the smartest trick up his sleeves but it was the best that he could do without a plan in mind. The car let out another screech, this time in panic as it tried to escape the illusion. 

He braced for the next act, sliding his feet back as he reached out with his magic and locked onto the car’s bumper. With a grunt, he flung the vehicle off the ground, the passengers wailing at the sudden shift of physics that sent them tumbling, their ride landing on its roof with a disastrous crash of windows before it righted itself with another ugly slam on its own four feet. The stunned silence after seemed to echo, stretching on and on without a wild applause to tear it to pieces. 

Loki breathed, turning to his brother who turned to him in the same instance, nodding once. In one cue, they marched for the ruined thing, coming out on stage where everyone could see them—two gods delivering their judgment on a sunny afternoon. Shedding their disguise in a shimmer of gold and a crackle and burst of thunder and lightning. The entire city seemed to come alive at the appearance of their favorite God of Thunder. Loki had always thought that there were many reasons why one ought to walk around in a cape—and this was just one of them. 

He missed the sound of the spinning mjolnir; in its stead, Thor started off with a run, leaping high into the air to draw a tight arch that ended on the ruined car’s hood with a great crash. The rest of the poor thing kicked up like a see-saw. His eye sparkling, he glared at the broken windshield, like the reckoning personified. 

The passenger’s door flew open just as he jumped off and righted the car. A man, fair, dressed all in black, came tripping out of his death cage in fits of screams and flails. 

Only to be caught by Loki by the collar who dragged him back to his car, kicking and scratching and crying but what was a simple Midgardian to a god? Ahead of them, Thor was slamming his fist on the useless hood, puncturing a hole through which he grabbed the engine with one hand and quite literally ripped it free, flinging it away. At that point, he really was just showing off. 

Then again, that was the point—they were _both_ showing off! 

The captured man landed with a yelp when Loki slammed him to the side of the car. A second man tried to escape the same way until his mettle failed him at the sight of Thor, thick arms crossed over his battle armor. Loki took his rightful place beside him. 

“Okay, who are you, why are you running, and why should I let you go?” Thor asked. 

The second man’s mouth fell open. A tight whimper came out. 

It was not a sound that Loki expected to hear, least of all from the other end of the car to which he and his brother both turned in surprise. The whimpers kept on. Neither of the suspects dared to move even when the Asgardians ignored them in favor of this discovery, Loki glancing at Thor once before he marched to the boot, reaching for the lock. 

With one swing, he ripped it open, throwing the top up. A creature came to life from within—gold all over, soft. 

Friendly. It was, Loki had to admit, the most handsome canine he’d ever set eyes on, surrounded by gray bags filled to bursting. The young thing spun on its paws once before it looked up to him and gave a bark, swishing its tail. Oblivious as to the circumstances of its discovery. 

Thor and Loki turned to each other. This was clearly theft of the highest order.

☈

“Did we do enough, then?”

Down the road, the area was cordoned off the eager public who wouldn’t catch a hint and persisted to linger with their devices raised. There was an ambulance waiting, lights flashing, sounds off, two police cars and several police officers standing around, surrounding the criminals while the paramedics attended to them. 

Thor dangled his feet, sitting next to his brother atop one of the shortest buildings around the area. “Near as I can tell, yes. At least one of those must be a journalist. Then, it’s all up to you,” he said, smiling at Loki as he clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll take care of Strange when he comes ringing.”

“Strange, what’s strange—” Loki whipped to his brother. “Oh. _That_ Strange.” He and Loki still had a ways to go with their working relationship. He set his eyes back on the scene below them. Two police officers were trying to disperse the crowd while the shell-shocked thieves were escorted to separate police cars. 

“You know, I’m sorry about your matcha latte,” Thor said. 

Loki waved his condolences off. “Occupational hazards.”

“Do you want me to get you another one? I know another Starbucks two blocks from here.”

At Thor’s offer, Loki whirled, brows flying high.

☈

The next day, like any self-respecting tourist, Loki took the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan, following a tip. Later on, he would be informed that this was not the best option to take—“Should’ve taken a cab,” Thor would tell him—but at this point, and he would later continue to defend it, he wanted to be absolutely sure he found what he needed. Manhattan was not a place he’d ever been to (at least not as a tourist—the last time he was in Manhattan, he came in on a chitauri vessel) and the name he was looking for was, as of the moment, slippery as a fish. It betrayed no meaning, no sense of origin.

He hid by the corner of the car, under a spell of anonymity, catching up with the current events of America over shoulders of unsuspecting Midgardians. He followed them out of the train, keeping an eye out on shadowed corners and obscure passageways but later on ignored them in favor of a better lead—a steady stream of people, a column really, heading to his direction. Heads down, eyes on the newspapers between their hands, bearing a familiar headline. Loki went against the flow. 

He moved purely by hunch, and so far his instincts haven’t failed him yet. This was not to be the first time. 

At the end of the corridor was a stairwell that led out of the station, into the city and the familiar sounds of its traffic, tunneled between walls of skyscrapers pressed tight into each other. From where he stood, it seemed as if whoever had built the city had made it their life’s mission to leave no space for cracks between walls—but what was a city without its fissures? Even Golden Asgard had many of them, ones Loki had memorized by rote. Through the years, he’d developed a knack for discovering new passageways purely by skill. 

But this one opened up to him like a book. Like the classic tale of a maiden singing by the lake, hidden behind hedges and lush trees—only the maiden was a young man hidden behind a concrete wall, and he wasn’t really singing, at least not in the technical definition of the word. With the healthy ring of a trained hawker, his voice cried out, “…or Odinson, back from Asgard! Brother Loki, friend or foe? You’ll wanna read all about it! Madam, can I interest you with some papes? Check this out: Thor Odinson returns from Asgard…”

“Let’s see it here, then, son,” Loki said, masking his natural accent to match the territory as he reached for one of the newspapers the hawker held out. He was a young man, with fat cheeks and prominent front teeth which lent themselves to a cheerful smile. A classic cap sat atop his head, matching his sweater vest worn over a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It was easy to take him as a student out of school but there was a jauntiness in him that spoke otherwise. Loki looked over the front page with its thick headlines and the photo underneath—of Thor bashing at the car hood, a bit of Loki caught near the bottom. _GOD OF THUNDER_ read the bold black text. _Thor Odinson stops thieves’ escape with criminal brother Loki,_ read the caption. It was the same content printed on all the newspapers he’d been following. “Can you believe that?” Loki commented, making a pretense of reading the rest of the words. “You must be selling these papers like pancakes.”

“Headlines don’t sell papes,” chirruped a surprise guest from the back of his friend, quite literally springing to his feet. This one had the confidence of someone older than him, with an easy golden hair swept back, set free from his cap tied to his belt. There were many things going on with him—he wore a shirt over his shirt, he had a walking staff, he had a knowing smirk—but the one detail that caught Loki’s eye was the shield that was pinned to his suspenders, a white star surrounded by blue and by rings of red and white worn proudly over his heart. This man was from Brooklyn. “Newsies sell papes,” he finished, much to the snickering cheer of his friend. 

“Newsies, eh?” Loki adjusted the roll of his tongue to copy theirs. “That the name of your union?” 

“It’s a club for the cool cats of New York’s what it is.” The man with a cap jabbed lightly at Thor’s photo. “Bet you five bucks you can’t find this scoop anywhere else.”

“You a gambler, then?” Loki prompted him, folding the paper in fours to pin between his armpit while he fished for a banknote in his pocket. He had none, of course—but that didn’t mean he had nothing to show for it. He handed the man a crisp five-dollar note. “What’s your name, son?” 

“We don’t call him Racetrack Higgins for no reason, Sir,” the friend answered, pointing at his shoulder. Racetrack took Loki’s money before he traced the brim of his cap from right to left like a salute of sorts, lips pursed to look cool. He ended up laughing. “You’d best keep an eye on your money ‘round him if you don’t want it,” he scratched the air with his fingers, “donated to charity.”

“Knock it off, Spot! You’re making me lose my business.” He cackled, though, jabbing the air behind him with his elbow, to Loki’s advantage. 

He might have caught the sparkle in his eyes, otherwise, or the quirk up Loki’s lips at his victory. Here he was—the gambler with a meaningless name. Turns out Thor set the perfect man on the job, after all. He did like it very much when he was proven right…

“So you sell the best papers New York has to offer,” Loki said, gesturing to his paper, both men turning to him. He nodded to them. “Which sources?” 

“‘m afraid that’s top secret, Sir,” the man called Spot said. Higgins drew a zipper over his closed lips to demonstrate it. “Even if you tried to look for ‘em, you wouldn’t find “em.”

“I’m sure.” Loki smiled. He wouldn’t be here otherwise. “Tell you what,” he unfolded his paper again to look at the headlines. “I’ll bet…” He folded it up, looking cheekily at the hawkers, “fifteen dollars, that my sources are better.”

Higgins sucked his breath, pressing a fist to his mouth before he looked back to a cackling Spot who gave him a low five. The blonde whispered something quickly to the brunette and clapped him twice. Higgins smiled like an innocent boy at Loki. “How about a twenty, Sir?” 

“Twenty sounds fine,” the trickster accepted, putting on a smirk. 

“What’s this I’m hearing now, Loki?” 

Loki turned back then, catching Thor in a questionable hoodie which made him pop his brow. He was sipping from a plastic cup—another one of his favorites, coffee with milk. At that point, he heard the distinct sounds of two Midgardians cussing, shifting back and stumbling to each other in surprise. Nothing new—it was always like this when it came to his brother. “What took you so long?” he asked, falling back to his native tone. 

“There was a line in Starbucks.” Thor handed him a white cup. “I got you a drink. Chai latte.”

“I thought you were the strongest Avenger?” Loki said, sniffing at his drink before he took an experimental sip. 

“Everyone wanted a selfie with me.”

“I’m sure.”

Thor turned to the gaping hawkers then to wave at them. “Hello.”

“Shit,” Spot mumbled, clambering out of Higgins’ grasp to point an accusatory finger at Thor enjoying his caffeine. “That the source you’re saying?” he demanded of Loki. 

Loki turned to Thor. Thor regarded him with a raised brow. “Could be,” he conceded. 

When he faced the stunned Midgardians, though, he asked them with a grin, “Want to see a magic trick?” A rhetorical question; he didn’t wait for an answer from their stares. Leaning closer, raising his hand, he swept the air from his face, as though he were wiping the illusion that shrouded his horned helmet, gleaming gold in the sun, only to put it back on to return himself to his Midgardian face. 

Thereby lifting his spell of anonymity. Spot and Higgins’ jaws fell. 

Loki rolled his eyes dramatically. “Come now, you haven’t seen this sort from SHIELD? Anyway.” He swept his hand over Higgins’ outstretched hand, gold light shining where his fake five-dollar bill used to be. “I’ll be expecting that twenty dollars then.”

“Hey!” 

“By the way, I’ve met your beloved captain?” Loki said to Spot, nodding at his pinned shield. “He’s not much.” The young man’s eyes flashed, the look of someone whose idol was slandered in front of his very face. 

“Loki,” Thor sighed. He reassured Spot with a hand, telling him, “Rogers is great. Love that guy,” while he handed Higgins another five-dollar bill, crumpled and extracted from his pocket. “You didn’t even pay,” he said to Loki, taking a newspaper and raising it with a smile to Higgins like a salute. 

“I forgot to steal your wallet,” Loki confessed, taking another sip from his cup. “Well, Your Majesty, may I present,” he swept his hand towards the Midgardians, looking at first one Asgardian and then the other, “Racetrack Higgins and…” His hand lingered at the glaring Spot a little longer, like a man at a loss for words. “Friend,” he decided. 

“That’s Spot Conlon for you, Mister!” 

“And pet,” Loki corrected. It wasn’t his fault the man chose to name himself after a dog. 

“Ignore him, he’s just being stupid,” Thor groaned, moving towards the hawkers. The irritation was clear in his voice. Loki smirked, bowing and moving back from his king. 

Thor looked kindly at both men. “I know who you are,” he assured them. “I know your network works for SHIELD, and I need your help.” He paused to let his words sink in. “I’m Thor, Son of Odin. And I’m looking for my friends.”


End file.
